


Synapse

by kaibasetos



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 10:27:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6002419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaibasetos/pseuds/kaibasetos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaiba doesn’t want anyone to understand this, understand him.</p><p>He doesn’t need that.</p><p>He’s told himself that over and over.</p>
            </blockquote>





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**Author's Note:**

> [[Valentine's Day Fic Bash 2016](http://kaibacorpking.tumblr.com/private/139289273480/tumblr_o2jex0gLDG1uy32l2)]
> 
> So... Posting this fic is sort of a huge deal for me. This is actually the first fic I ever wrote for JouKai, all the way back in January 2015. It was written before _The Fire's Gravity_ , the first JouKai fic I published here, but I was too nervous to post it back then. Thus, TFG went up instead, and this fic has been sitting in my Drive folder ever since. I pushed the general sentiment and feeling of this fic into _Something Lost & Something Gained_, so the two might read somewhat similarly, but I've always been very attached to this one for some reason. I figured the Fic Bash would be as good a time as any to finally expose it to the world, so here it is! My very first JouKai fic, posted over a year after the fact, haha. I hope y'all enjoy!
> 
> I'll drop a mild content warning here: This fic doesn't explicitly mention abuse, but it does make mention of Gozaburo, Kaiba's trauma, and Jounouchi's relationship with his father. Tread carefully!

It’s been years since Kaiba felt touch on behalf of anyone other than his younger brother. Years since he let anyone close enough to even have the opportunity to bestow it upon him, years since he allowed anyone even the barest hint of control over his body in such a way. Longer still since he felt touch that was positive and welcoming. Not since his biological parents passed, not since they held their little baby boy in their arms and showered him in the last vestige of loving care he would ever receive on the cruel and unforgiving path to his destiny. He has never been a creature of touch, but he can’t help but feel alien for it, sheltered, disconnected.

That lingering feeling has admittedly begun to ebb in the face of the reluctant, yet budding connection between himself and Yuugi’s group of friends. His heart feels a little lighter, a little clearer to him now. His smiles are fleeting, but present, less tarnished antique and more genuine modern masterpiece each time.

Things are getting brighter.

It’s been years since Kaiba let anyone touch him.

The first time Jounouchi tries to touch him, it’s an innocent gesture. Everyone is talking up a storm about some endearing, trivial event in their past, and Jounouchi is still laughing when he throws out a hand to clap Kaiba on the shoulder. It’s so simple, so meaningless, but so inherently threatening. All at once Kaiba is a young boy again, and the memory of Gozaburo’s cold, firm hand squeezing his shoulder wrenches his stomach with an abrupt feeling of sickness and disgust, of slow-burning, sleeping contempt. His blood turns to ice. Jounouchi’s fingertips barely brush the fabric of his jacket before he’s drawing back like a wounded animal, drawing up like an awakening beast. His breathing comes fast and harsh, his voice is foreign and venomous in his throat when he bites, “Don’t you dare touch me.”

Jounouchi’s mouth automatically twists into a scowl with the intent to lash right back, but something stops him dead in his tracks: the look in Kaiba’s eyes, so unlike him. Like a frightened child, vulnerable and threatened. This isn’t a joke, this in’t an insult, this isn’t Kaiba. This is something bigger than him. Bigger than both of them.

The silence is so thick and tense it’s almost tangible.

Kaiba can see a sort of dawning realization fall across Jounouchi’s face, a sudden sense of understanding, and as quickly as they were wrenched open the walls of his fortress come crashing back down upon him. He is all poise again, calm collection and squared straight shoulders with a too-old frown written into his too-young features. A monument of solitude and strength. He can’t afford to be anything else.

He can’t let them see him like this. He can’t let them know.

“Kaiba,” Jounouchi begins, drawing his hand back towards himself slowly, and Kaiba cuts him off as just as abruptly as he begins.

“Stop.”

He regrets it the moment he says it. Detests it, the way Jounouchi’s face morphs into concern and confusion. The way they’re all looking at him now, shock in their eyes and mouths. The way the demons of his past still haunt him, still dig their ragged claws into his fragile skin and pull him down into the depths when he’s not constantly on his guard. The way his heart is racing in his chest, the way deep breaths seem to stutter in his throat.

How badly he wants it to stop.

Jounouchi is thankfully intelligent enough to understand that this is a matter that is far beyond him, and so he lets it go. He holds up his hands up in surrender, he mutters “okay”, and that’s all there is to it. He lets it go, and Kaiba can breathe again. The fresh night air feels like relief in his lungs.

It doesn’t take long for the group to dissolve back into their usual bubbly talk, but Kaiba doesn’t stop thinking about it for the rest of the night. Judging by the looks Jounouchi keeps giving him, sidelong and questioning, neither does he. And that just won’t do.

Upon his return to Kaiba Corp he informs his secretary to tell Yuugi and Jounouchi that he is busy or away every time they call, and just like that, they don’t see him again for two full weeks. He spends most of his days keeping busy, working, sending e-mails, but the memory of that almost-touch lingers still. It smothers him when he lays down to sleep. Thoughts of Jounouchi’s fingers on his jacket mix with thoughts of Gozaburo’s fingers at the back of his neck. Thoughts of how long it’s been since he felt touch that wasn’t tinged with malice and control.

He finds himself wishing he had been able to let Jounouchi lay a hand on him.

He finds himself absolutely terrified of what that means.

It’s outlandish to expect that Jounouchi will ever leave anything well enough alone. He’s a reckless, hot-headed fool who never gives up and that’s a well-known fact, so on the fifteenth night, when Kaiba’s secretary buzzes in through the intercom on his desk, he knows without her even saying a word. It’s Jounouchi.

“Mr. Kaiba, there is someone here who would like to speak with you.”

Kaiba stares blankly at the intercom, his fingers still hovering over the keys of his laptop. He leans over to press the button and page her back, simply asking to confirm his suspicions: “Who?”

It takes a moment, and then:

“Mr. Jounouchi, sir. He’s very… Insistent. It seems important.”

Apprehension settles deep in the pit of Kaiba’s stomach. He turns his chair to stare out the office window at the darkening skyline of Domino at sunset’s end, watching the headlights of cars twinkle in and out as far as the eye can see. He inhales deeply, exhales shakily, and sinks into the weight of the silence just long enough to settle into his unfortunate decision. When he turns back around, his hands are already trembling.

He closes his laptop before he presses the intercom button again, and his voice is like lead.

“Let him in.”

“Yes, sir.”

He doesn’t have to wait long before Jounouchi comes through the door, shutting it behind him uncharacteristically slowly and walking up to the desk. His hand hovers on the back of the chair opposite Kaiba and it could be read as an action that almost translates as nerves, except Kaiba knows the look on his face so well he could see it with his eyes closed. The face he wears when he’s dueling, all determination and concentration. He’s on a mission.

“Look, I’m--”

“I don’t want your pity and I don’t want your apologies, so if that’s all you have to deliver you can feel free to escort yourself out, Jounouchi,” Kaiba interrupts sharply, crossing his arms. A safety measure, a measure of protection.

That would be enough to silence most anyone, but Jounouchi is not most anyone. He is, in fact, the only one whose passion has never been quelled by such bitter words; the only one whose fire seems to burn even brighter in response, as though consuming those words and rising above them. Kaiba feels a pang of envy in his chest -- envy for that warmth, that fervor.

“Fine by me,” Jounouchi says with a shrug of one shoulder. “Fine by me ‘cause I didn’t come here to apologize, I came here to tell you…” He cuts himself short, looking over Kaiba’s shoulder and out into the boundless city before lowering his gaze to the desk, his hand clenching into a fist. “For fuck’s sake, Kaiba, you gotta let someone in already.”

Kaiba scoffs, the weight in his stomach growing vicious, growing dangerous, turning him to revolt. “Do not presume you have any right to tell me what I’m required to do, Jounouchi. You know nothing about where I come from, what I’ve gone through.”

The way Jounouchi laughs almost pitifully at that, shaking his head, is just a reminder: Jounouchi _does_ know. Jounouchi knows better than anyone. He’s never spoken openly about his home life in front of Kaiba, but Kaiba is perceptive, familiar enough with the behavior of victims that he’s aware of just how false and hollow his words are. He can’t stop them from barreling through anyway though, slighted and vexed, intent on shutting Jounouchi out because he doesn’t _want_ anyone to know. He doesn’t want anyone to understand this, understand him.

He doesn’t need that.

He’s told himself that over and over.

“God, you’re such a stubborn prick,” Jounouchi says in a tone that straddles the line between admiration and irritation. He runs his hands through his hair and takes an audible breath, settling aggression in nerves and muscles, and lit by the glow from the lamp on Kaiba’s desk he looks so otherworldly. A creature from Kaiba’s present intent on destroying the creatures from his past. Kaiba digs his nails into his palms and tries not to look away, not to display even a hint of the emotions that threaten to annihilate him.

“I didn’t come here to fight with you, Kaiba,” Jounouchi continues finally, his voice more serious now. He makes eye contact this time and his glare is disarming, consuming, like being swallowed alive. Kaiba has been faced by that glare before, but never in a situation like this.

“Then leave,” Kaiba retorts, but his tone is strained, wavering on the last syllable. Weakness, how he hates showing weakness, how the feeling of it makes him violent. How he hates the way Jounouchi is looking at him, as though trying to decipher some kind of code that no one else has ever been able to crack. He can feel how much effort Jounouchi is going through to refrain from rising to his bait this time, to refrain from engaging in the savage argument they could be having right now, but why?

“You’re wasting your time, Jounouchi," Kaiba tries again. "This isn’t something that can be cured by one of your valiant attempts at friendship.”

Jounouchi’s mouth quirks up in a smile and he finally sinks down into the chair he’s been standing behind, leaning over the desk and waiting for Kaiba to process his own words. Friendship isn’t quite the right term and Kaiba isn’t sure it has been for quite some time now. From enemies to rivals to begrudging acquaintances to friends to whatever _this_ is, his relationship with Jounouchi has never been so simple to categorize. It’s less easily described by a word than it is described by Jounouchi’s eyes in the dark, looking up at him like he’s something he would kill for.

“Goddamn Kaiba, it’s almost like you’re bein’ deliberately obtuse here. I never said anything about _curin’_ you,” Jounouchi protests, and he holds up his right hand palm-first towards Kaiba. “Hold up your hand.”

Kaiba sneers, crossing his arms tighter. Jounouchi is prying into things he doesn’t fully comprehend the weight of, but then, when isn’t he? He should have expected this from Jounouchi, should have expected that it wouldn’t be so simple to get him to let it go.

He hates it.

He craves it.

“You’re the one who is insisting upon being obtuse if you really think I’m going to follow your orders.”

Jounouchi’s shoulders twitch as he reigns in his self-control. Whatever it is he’s doing, he’s being so painfully patient and careful about it. Patient and careful in a way Kaiba has never seen from him before. Patient and careful in a way that makes him riotous.

“It’s not an order, Kaiba, will you just hold up your hand? Trust me.”

They seem at a stalemate for the space of several heartbeats, both of them glaring one another down across the desk, challenging. It’s Kaiba who moves first, slowly uncrossing his arms and holding up his hand in a mimicry of what Jounouchi is doing, his brows furrowed and his mouth a tight line. _Trust me_ , Jounouchi says. Kaiba doesn’t have much of a choice in the matter. He never has.

Jounouchi maintains eye contact as he slowly moves his hand towards Kaiba’s, pressing their palms together.

It’s such a warm touch, warmer than Kaiba can ever remember feeling, and his first instinct is to flinch away again -- but Jounouchi is still looking at him, looking at him with eyes full of not pity but comprehension, not sympathy but encouragement. All at once, Kaiba gets it. This isn’t weakness to him. It’s strength. The strength to let someone this close to him, flesh to flesh, and give them the power to destroy him. The strength to do what his father made sure he would never want to do again.

His father, all hard grip and frowning mouth, all stern, shouted words.

Kaiba feels ill.

“Don’t think about it,” Jounouchi murmurs, and gently, so gently Kaiba never would have thought it possible from him, curls his fingers in to hold Kaiba’s hand. Kaiba’s heart is beating so hard he swears they should be able to hear it from the streets. “Think about us. Think about me.”

Think about Jounouchi. Think about those eyes in the lamplight glow, almost pleading, reasoning with him. Think about Jounouchi’s easy laughter and easier words, his bright smile, all the things that make Kaiba ache with the wish to be more like him, more open, more, just _more_. He can feel heat radiating from where their skin touches, flooding his body with an electric glow, a liquid intensity in his core. He can feel so much, so much he hadn’t even been aware that he’d been missing.

He can’t speak, but he can stay here like this, just touching. Just touching, for one of the only times in his life that he’s allowed himself to do so.

Jounouchi’s thumb passes over his knuckles. Kaiba can barely swallow past the lump in his throat, can barely breathe through the pressure in his chest. Slowly, ever so slowly, he finally curls his fingers in on Jounouchi’s hand, and the way Jounouchi’s eyes light up in response is unlike anything Kaiba has ever seen.

Somehow, it makes everything feel worth it.

Somehow, it feels like rebirth.

 

When he escorts Jounouchi out of the building a little later, Jounouchi is back to his old self again, practically bounding through the lobby and out the door onto the street. They don’t speak until they’re both outside, the breeze stirring their clothes and hair, and Jounouchi just grins at him. Not a mocking grin, one that reaches his eyes, one that speaks volumes.

It’s a grin Kaiba can’t return, but that’s okay. He knows that now.

“Don’t be a stranger anymore. They all miss you,” Jounouchi tells him, and there’s an unspoken whisper of _I miss you_ lingering just beneath his words that Kaiba tries his best to ignore.

“Alright,” is Kaiba’s only reply, and there’s an unspoken whisper of _thank you_ lingering just beneath his words that Jounouchi makes sure not to pass over.

This time, when Jounouchi reaches over to take his hand, Kaiba doesn’t think about Gozaburo at all. He thinks of Jounouchi instead, his hair whipped wild in the wind, his face tender.

He thinks of Jounouchi, and he feels the unfamiliar light of hope bloom from deep within him.

He can overcome this. He will. He will overcome it like he has everything else.

Maybe this time, though, he can afford to allow a little help.


End file.
